


Yet Again, Come

by the_pen_is_mightier



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Aziraphale POV, Aziraphale loves Crowley, Crowley POV, Crowley loves Aziraphale, Crowley waits for Aziraphale, Fallen Aziraphale, Fluff, M/M, Post-Canon, Softness, historical overview, reflections
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-21
Updated: 2019-09-28
Packaged: 2020-10-25 14:35:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20725805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_pen_is_mightier/pseuds/the_pen_is_mightier
Summary: Aziraphale has chosen him, just as Crowley always knew he would.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [HakureiRyuu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HakureiRyuu/gifts).

> Based on another prompt from the wonderful @HakureiRyuu, this time the worship song "come, come, whoever you are" interpreted as Crowley speaking to Aziraphale. Cue endless tenderness. 
> 
> Please, more prompts, they give me life! And please leave comments!

_I gave it away_, said the angel once, and everything changed. 

Crowley had worked out a plan before leaving Hell for Eden. He’d determined first to go after the humans - tempt them to disobedience, give them their first taste of freedom. Then he’d turn to the Host. Sweet-talk the guardian of the Eastern Gate, distract him, and when the moment was right, dart in and steal his flaming sword. Take it down to Hell - or better yet, Crowley had thought in the part of his brain that Hell didn’t like, destroy the blasted thing. He’d seen this angel wield it in the first War. He knew the kind of damage it could do. He’d prefer it didn’t exist at all, and certainly didn’t exist to threaten humankind. 

But he prompted the angel about the sword, asked where he’d put it, and the angel responded with _that_. And Crowley’s life has never been the same since. 

Crowley sprays his plants absentmindedly. It’s late morning, the sun is streaming thick and placid through his windows, and everything feels somehow heavy and easy. Yesterday he went to Heaven. Today he’s on Earth, which still exists, and will keep existing for a good while yet. Today he’s in his flat. These past few weeks he’s felt like he’s on a derailed train, spinning wildly toward a cliff, wheels screaming, metal grinding against metal, chaos reigning within - but now it feels like, miraculously, everything has ground to a halt. _He’s_ ground to a halt, and it’s such a relief, once more, to be still. 

It’s not just that he loves Aziraphale. He does, oh, certainly he does, loves him more than music and light and breath, loves him with every part of his soul and every beating grain of his heart. But one-sided love can’t last six thousand years. It would have destroyed him. It’s not just that he loves Aziraphale, but that he sees something in the angel, always has, since the wall. It’s that he’s glimpsed a steely center of rebellion in the angel’s heart - that he’s known, deep down, that Aziraphale will not stay with Heaven forever. That here is a soul like him, though not as fast, not as reckless, one who sees unuttered truths deep down inside. That here is a spirit with whom, in time, he can build a different world. 

It’s not just that he loves Aziraphale. It’s that he’s spent six thousand years with his arms open, waiting for Aziraphale to fall into them, and he’s been certain all that time that his waiting is not in vain. 

Crowley moves lazily around the room with his mister. The present moment hangs suspended, caught in warm amber, and Crowley thinks of the past. 

When the first drops of rain began to fall in Mesopotamia, Crowley sprang into action. He’d been running errands for Hell plenty of time by then, but never had they asked him to kill a human - kill a _child_ \- and he found in a split second that it wasn’t something he could stomach. When the skies opened, when the floods rose, he took as many of them as he could carry and stowed them away on the ark. 

He spoke to Aziraphale beforehand, that was how he knew what was happening. He told Aziraphale, with his eyes, with his tone, everything the angel didn’t want to hear - that it was wrong, that it was ludicrous, that it was cruel and inhuman. Aziraphale shot back that it was ineffable. Not willing to say anything against God. When topics like that came up, he always closed off, always threw up shields; certain things he would not discuss or admit to. Certain lines he would not cross. 

But Crowley wasn’t worried then. When he gathered up the children, he didn’t panic. Because he knew soon enough he’d see it coming - just what came, to help bear along the stragglers, to rescue one little boy who had fallen behind because he was clutching his baby sister in his arms. A white-winged guardian. Aziraphale couldn’t stomach it either. 

Crowley rearranges three of the pots, positioning one that’s wilting into more direct sunlight. He notices that one of the larger ones has a tiny spot on its leaf. 

He frowns down at it. Spots are usually triggers for rage, but Crowley is feeling lazy today - feeling comfortable. He grimaces and strokes his thumb over the spot. With a little crackle of light, it vanishes. 

“Just this once,” he says, and it’s meant to be a warning, but his voice is softer than he intended. “Don’t get used to it.” 

He remembers what an ordeal it was to gain the right to touch Aziraphale. Direct contact between angels and demons is supposed to be painful for both parties, but it turned out that’s only true in combat; they proved that early on when their hands brushed, and since then Crowley has waited endlessly for a more voluntary instance of the same. In hands extended over tables, or to lead Aziraphale through the streets of ancient cities, or to be led by him. In the butting of shoulders after a joke, or the brushing of a fallen leaf from Aziraphale’s head, or the miracled healing of a cut on the wrist or the thumb or the cheek. At first Aziraphale flinched away from those touches. At first he endeavored to avoid them, still building up his walls every time Crowley offered himself to him, still shrinking away. And Crowley would never force himself upon the angel, but he never flagged in his offering, and he knew - _knew!_ \- from a thousand tiny crinkles around Aziraphale’s eyes, a thousand tiny seconds of longing repressed, that one day the offer would be accepted. That it was fear, not disinterest, that held him back. 

Oh, Crowley remembers the day he and Aziraphale had just finished watching one of Shakespeare’s funny plays - laughing through it together, and then suddenly still at the end when the lovers were united - and Aziraphale reached out his hand to take Crowley’s. Crowley blushed harder than he had in centuries when his fingers closed around the angel’s. Aziraphale didn’t look at him then, but the warm pressure of his hand - _given, freely given_ \- was enough to communicate the feelings his words still checked. 

Crowley leaves his plants be and crosses to the window. He stares down at London, at the sun-drenched streets untouched by apocalypse. Everything seems a little brighter, more vivid - is that a result of Adam’s resetting time as well? Or is it the delight of knowing this beautiful world is going to continue, and that he’s allowed to enjoy it now, all of it, without regard for Hell’s orders?

He rubs his eyes. Maybe it’s just that he isn’t wearing sunglasses anymore. 

Those offered hands were trivial things, but not everything has been trivial. Not everything has been so easily resolved with a play outing after five thousand years. Some things have required endless, careful probing - the gentlest of nudges, the smallest of questions. But Crowley has known since Eden that Aziraphale has his doubts as well. He wants to believe in God, wants to love her, but he’s never kept Crowley quite fooled when Crowley asks why she makes humans suffer. 

_The Almighty knows things we couldn’t dream of knowing_, Aziraphale has always insisted. 

And Crowley has said, quietly, faintly enough that Aziraphale could pretend he hadn’t heard if he wanted to - _well, she could tell us then._

_Heaven wouldn’t be involved with it if it wasn’t good._

He didn’t say what he wanted to, in response to that one - _I was in Heaven once too_ \- but instead just smiled at Aziraphale, and Aziraphale looked away, knowing what Crowley was thinking. Then Crowley changed the subject. He played his game with utmost patience, waiting, waiting, waiting for the glass to tip and the water to fall. 

And it did, in tiny droplets. A small sigh, a shake of the head, a softly admitted _I don’t know_ in response to one of Crowley’s questions. An _I don’t understand either._ A mortified _God doesn’t talk to me._

Once, when the angel was very, very drunk, a tearstained _I’m scared of her._

And to that Crowley laid his hand on Aziraphale’s, and squeezed, and said he was sure everything was going to be all right. Because despite his lack of faith in other departments, Crowley has always believed that everything works out in the end. He has always believed that darkness can’t finish any story really. And he has always, always believed in Aziraphale. 

Well. It’s not as though it’s always been easy. 

When the Antichrist came, when the end of the world began to loom over Crowley, fear _did_ start to creep into his mind. Time, which for so long had been his one infinite resource, began to feel terrifyingly as though it was drying up. Eleven years? That was nothing, nothing, for an angel who had taken a thousand even to admit implicitly that God was wrong for killing children. Eleven years to convince him to thwart the Great Plan? So he begged Aziraphale, begged him with musicians and bookshops and lunch and wine, and failing that begged with his own self - _you’d be thwarting me_ \- to a last-ditch attempt at being on a single side. 

And it worked. Almost. But then Warlock was the wrong boy, and in the chaotic last week Aziraphale discovered things Crowley didn’t know, and pulled away. Aziraphale found Adam first, and went to Heaven with the information. Went to God. Or tried; Crowley suspected that contact had never really gone through. 

Crowley had spent six thousand years waiting for the angel, coaxing him forward, step by step, letting him set the pace - drawing back when Aziraphale asked for patience, when he said _you go too fast for me_, but always ready when he chose to move forward again. And then Aziraphale moved back. Stepped back and flew up and _left him._

And then the bookshop fire. Yes, Crowley was tempted then to give in to despair. After all this time, yes, that fire did nearly break him. He doesn’t relish the memory of that feeling, sitting alone in the flames and the ashes, his soul crumbling around him, the words echoing through his skull _you ruined it you ruined it you waited too long you should have done something should have kept him here should have protected him you useless -_

But blessed be the universe, in the end, after all. Aziraphale came back for him. 

Crowley turns from the window at last, to view his flat. The plants all around seem healthier than they ever have before. The sunlight that dapples their broad, verdant leaves throws Crowley back to a time before London, a time before cities, a time lush with free-growing plants and free-flowing fruits and warmth and light enough to fill every soul alive. A time where everything was beautiful, and everything was harmonious, and Crowley was alone. 

He smiles. 

Aziraphale came back for him, pulled him out of his stupor in that bar, and encouraged him to help stop the end of the world. Aziraphale told him, with his firm, steady tone, with the glint in his eyes that Crowley knew so well, that he had finally had enough of Heaven. That he wasn’t following Gabriel’s orders anymore. That he wasn’t going to war. 

Oh, Aziraphale took that step after all, on his own, and in that split second Crowley laughed at himself for ever doubting his angel. 

Crowley tilts his head. Squint and look out of one eye, and it really looks as though Crowley has built a new Eden for himself in his flat. With this glowing sunlight, you almost couldn’t tell the difference. Maybe, Crowley reflects, maybe that’s why he feels so inexplicably still and calm - because he has the feeling of coming full circle. From Eden he’s waited for his angel to give up on Heaven. For him to choose Crowley’s side over the angels’. And finally, finally, Aziraphale is coming around. 

The doorbell rings. 

Ah - just on time. They didn’t make any plans to meet, after they switched bodies back, but Crowley knew Aziraphale would come. He knew there were only a few steps left along Aziraphale’s path. And of course, as always, he was willing to let the angel take them on his own time, alone. 

Crowley is languid with ambling over to the door. He lets the smallest of smiles steal over his lips, to tell Aziraphale _I missed you_ when their eyes meet. To tell him, because he knows Aziraphale has been worried, _I’m not angry with you._

What meets his eyes is unexpected. It’s Aziraphale, just as he knew it would be, but it’s not just Aziraphale in his ordinary waistcoat and bowtie. It’s not just his usual bright eyes and fluffy hair. His wings are out, wide and unfolded and trailing down toward the floor.

Crowley’s eyes widen. They’re black. 

“Hello, Crowley,” says Aziraphale, and there’s so much in his voice - so many unsaid words that Crowley has learned, through endless centuries, to unravel and translate from his tongue - that Crowley nearly bursts with it. 

He gapes instead. Wordless. 

“Sleep well?” 

Crowley steps forward, putting his hand out tentatively - Aziraphale nods assent. He runs a hand gently over the soft black feathers. Still so soft. 

It’s not an outcome he hasn’t considered, in six thousand years. But it still pains him somewhere deep and primal to see the love of his life cast down. Though he knows it’s all meaningless, good and evil as defined by Heaven and Hell, he still wanted Aziraphale to believe he was infinitely loved. 

“Well,” he says, sighing. “So. You’ve lost your grace.” 

Aziraphale’s response is quiet but certain. “Gave it away.” 

Crowley blinks, and his eyes flicker up from Aziraphale’s wing to his face. Aziraphale is smiling. He reaches out to catch the hand Crowley has been using to stroke his feathers, and draws Crowley closer by it. That old sensation of a barrier, the feeling that he’s closed off, has entirely vanished; Aziraphale is wide open, ready, waiting for him. _Waiting for Crowley._

“Do you regret it?” Crowley breathes.

Aziraphale shakes his head. “I’m not afraid of Falling anymore, my dear. I know you’ll catch me.” 

And he does, oh, he does, wrapping his arms so tight around Aziraphale it must restrict his breathing, cradling the back of his head with one hand, wings enfolding him. And Aziraphale lets himself be held. No more distance, no more retreat, no words of caution or fear. Aziraphale is soft in his grasp. Accepting. 

“I’m so sorry it took so long,” Aziraphale says, voice muffled against Crowley’s shoulder. 

Crowley kisses Aziraphale’s forehead. Aziraphale presses further into him, like he wants to sink through Crowley’s skin and become one, like he wants nothing to separate them at all. Crowley feels warmer than he has in a long time, with his angel in his arms. 

“Don’t apologize,” he murmurs. “I didn’t mind waiting for you.” 

“Oh, _Crowley_.” 

“It’s true.” Crowley grins against his hair. “I never doubted you. Take all the time you need, angel, always - I’ll never stop inviting you in.” 

But there doesn’t seem to be any question of time at the moment. Aziraphale kisses him. He doesn’t wait, doesn’t waste a single second even on breathing - their lips meet, and meet, and stay together. Aziraphale leans into it. He’s here, all of him. His love comes in waves, no weaker for him being a demon, if that’s what he is now; it crashes over Crowley strong enough to sweep him off his feet. It fills him and carries him and keeps him steady, and it’s everything, everything Crowley could ever have wanted.

It was worth it. Everything. Six thousand years, more, he was right - it was all worth it, to end like this. 

They stay in each other’s arms for a long, long time.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was prompted to write a second chapter as a follow-up from Aziraphale's perspective. The prompt song this time is "ready now" by dodie.

He gave his sword away that day, and everything changed. 

Aziraphale, Principality, Guardian of the Eastern Gate, once held many other names, and each one was more terrible than the last. Somewhere in Heaven there is a record of all his deeds from the first war - the armies he led, the fallen angels he cut down and cast out, the terror of his true angelic form. He remembers the righteous wrath he inflicted with a sickening twist to his stomach, now, but it’s been a very long time since then. 

He gave away his flaming sword. He couldn’t have told, in the very moment, _why_ he did it, as he was perfectly aware how much that sword was worth to the Heavenly armies. He only had a vague feeling somewhere deep within him, deeper than he dared look most of the time, that it was the right thing to do. And deeper even than that a sense that he didn’t want the damned thing in his possession anymore. 

So he gave it away. Not long after that, he met a demon. 

“Morning,” says Crowley, when Aziraphale shuffles into the kitchen, rubbing his eyes. He’s still in his pajamas. He’s making pancakes. They smell divine, but Aziraphale goes straight for Crowley with barely a glance at them - wrapping him in a hug that’s still soft with the memory of their shared sleep. 

“Today’s the beginning,” he says. 

Crowley nods, without asking for an explanation. He understands. This is the first day they will spend together in every sense, as fellow outcasts from Heaven. Fellow demons. The word ought to make Aziraphale shudder, but it doesn’t remind him of the filth and the stink of Hell, or the grim face of Beelzebub, or the nameless hordes he marched against in the First War - no, the word _demon_ is associated now with lunch dates and sunlit park benches and endless, endless love. 

“What should we do?” he asks. 

Crowley pulls away, and steps back, and smiles as he slides a stack of pancakes onto a plate. “Well, it’s not all bad, being a demon, you know. There are advantages.” 

“Like what?” 

“For one thing,” he says, and snaps his fingers to transport the pancakes onto the kitchen table, “Hell doesn’t track your every move. Especially now, they won’t.” Crowley plants a kiss on his cheek. “So no such thing as frivolous miracles.” 

The concept is intriguing. Aziraphale sits at the table, across from Crowley, who drinks his coffee as Aziraphale eats. He thinks it over. 

“Do you think we’ll be spending much time here?” he says at last. “Now that we aren’t hiding anymore?”

“You’re welcome here anytime.” 

Aziraphale smiles and rises from the table. He leads Crowley out of the kitchen, toward the place where his houseplants are gathered - and there, nestled among them, is an overstuffed bookcase that was certainly not there yesterday. 

“What do you think of that?” he asks. 

Crowley grins. “Exactly what I’m talking about.” 

_____

_You can’t judge the Almighty_, he said once, and Crowley was incredulous. Aziraphale squirmed under the questions launched at him - _not the kids? You can’t kill kids?_ \- but held the line, kept his loyalty. He didn’t speak out directly against Heaven even when he helped the children onto the ark with Crowley. He didn’t speak at all, actually, because terror was coursing through him, making his ornamental heart beat faster than the speed of sound. 

Crowley didn’t push him then, only urged him on in silence. Crowley trusted him to come without being forced, though Aziraphale had no such confidence; he didn’t know what he was going to do until the last second. 

Crowley knows him, as it turns out, far better than he knows himself. 

Weeks pass. Houseplants begin appearing in the bookshop, miracled there by Aziraphale - Crowley puts up a half-hearted resistance to Aziraphale praising them, but when, after the first _oh, you’re growing so beautifully_ to an orchid, Aziraphale turns and kisses Crowley’s brewing protest from his mouth, there are few arguments. Aziraphale begins talking to his books in the same way, talking to his shelves and armchairs, and finds that dust no longer collects in their corners. 

He begins talking to everything. The ants that crawl by his windowsill, the bees that mingle among the flowers he puts outside, the sidewalks and streets of Soho itself. Weeks pass and he feels, in a way he never has before, the world come alive under his touch. 

One day he’s carrying on a lively discussion with a group of pigeons outside when a little girl comes running up to him and asks, eagerly, “What are they saying?” 

Aziraphale smiles at her. “They’re complaining about the cold.”

She nods. Utterly serious. “They haven’t got any hats.” 

“Would _you_ like a hat?” Her ears are reddened, and the wind is starting to pick up as fall creeps toward winter. 

The girl sits down next to a pigeon, examining it from a safe distance. She’s a little slower with her response, a little quieter, and it isn’t lost on Aziraphale. “I haven’t got money for one.” 

He can’t resist. With a flourish, he reaches down and pulls a coin from behind her ear. “What about this?” 

The girl’s eyes go round with delight.

“I could sell you a hat for that much, if you’d like.”

“Are you a magician? Can you make one appear?” 

He holds his hands behind his back. He considers saying that he’s an angel, then that he’s a demon, but he thinks _magician_ suits him better, somehow. “Close your eyes and count to three.” 

She does, and when she opens them he’s produced a hat of thick, hand-knitted yarn, flowers woven through the brim. The enthusiasm in her eyes mirrors that which Aziraphale associates with elaborate desserts at the Ritz. She tries it on and is astonished to discover it’s a perfect fit. 

“Oh, there you are!” 

Aziraphale looks up. A woman, holding a baby in one arm, is hurrying over to the girl. “Now, you mustn’t wander off like that, and you shouldn’t bother strangers who -”

“She isn’t a bother,” says Aziraphale quickly. “We were just talking to the pigeons.” 

“They don’t like the weather,” the girl supplies. 

The woman’s face undergoes a slow transformation when she looks at Aziraphale. At first there’s a nameless harried expression, one of a mother not entirely sure of herself, mingled with mistrust. But in another moment she smiles. Something in Aziraphale’s countenance has changed her mind. 

“Are you Mr. Fell?” she asks, nodding at the bookshop behind them.

“I am.”

“Would you believe, I pass this bookshop every day, but I’ve never actually seen you.” She holds out a hand. “It’s nice to finally meet you.” 

Aziraphale shakes, and waves at the little girl as she skips away with her new hat; the girl beams back at him. He feels unexpectedly warm. He doesn’t usually talk to children - he doesn’t usually have occasion to. For that matter, he doesn’t have occasion much to talk with human adults, either. He hasn’t had occasion to do something simple and kind outside of Heaven’s orders for a long time. And to use a miracle for it, no less. 

Heaven would have scoffed at the whole thing. Aziraphale would have been hard-pressed to explain why he needed to nearly expose his magical powers in front of a human just to give a child a hat. But Aziraphale doesn’t answer to Heaven anymore. 

“Angel,” comes a voice from behind.

Aziraphale turns. Crowley is hanging out the window, a broad grin on his face. He must have seen the whole interaction, because he glances meaningfully down at the coin in Aziraphale’s hand, and Aziraphale smiles up at him.

“Come inside,” Crowley says. “Let’s make dinner.” 

_____

Crowley has always listened to him. It’s one of the most remarkable things about Crowley, and Aziraphale has often flinched away from it at the same time that he’s been drawn to it. Aziraphale lost his fear of Crowley after their very first conversation, but his fear of his own mind, of his own thoughts and doubts, lingered for centuries upon centuries longer than that. It took the end of the world for Aziraphale to finally let Crowley have all of him, to finally turn away from what he’d always known was rotten. 

He won’t stop now. He won’t draw back a single step, not ever again. He moves only inward. 

In mornings waking up beside Crowley, he kisses him slowly and gently awake, waiting for his golden eyes to open so he can say _they’re so beautiful, darling, you’re so beautiful_. He eats with Crowley, sometimes relishing the long process of preparing the food, sometimes miracling it onto their plates, sometimes dining out at miraculously free tables in high-priced restaurants and cafes. He reads to Crowley in the evenings, when they’re both a little tipsy, and sometimes Crowley falls asleep by the end, so Aziraphale picks him up and carries him to bed - and it’s strange how light Crowley is, how easily he fits into Aziraphale’s arms. Though maybe it’s not that Crowley is light. Maybe Aziraphale is simply strong. 

He once cut a clear path through an entire demon battalion with one blow, but he’s never felt strong before. 

The little girl returns. She and her mother stop by the bookshop, and Aziraphale manages to keep them from buying anything, though the girl does read his books before putting them back on the shelves. He’s happy to let her. The mother admits their family’s fallen on hard times, and she has to work a job she hates; Aziraphale says he understands. 

He introduces them to Crowley, who takes to the little girl immediately. They build a blanket fort off in a far corner and Crowley starts eagerly telling her stories about stars, and planets, and unicorns. Aziraphale makes the mother tea.

A month later she’s miraculously found a better job. The girl comes in with a dozen tiny hats she’s knitted for the pigeons. The pigeons, showing rather uncharacteristic pigeon behavior, wear them.

The word gets out about A. Z. Fell and his husband. More families begin stopping by the bookstore, not to buy anything, but to talk - and the children come to play with Crowley, who, when the adults can’t see, shows them to general delight how he can grow fangs and horns and a forked tongue. Once he lets a group of them braid his hair. When he and Aziraphale are alone again and Aziraphale sees it, he can’t help kissing Crowley, tenderly combing the braids out with his fingers, murmuring _you’re so sweet, Crowley, you’re so kind, you’re so good_, and watching Crowley blush and grumble and smile under the compliments. 

And those who come to him struggling - with low funds, with grief, with bad relationships or abandoned ones, with loss or pain or fear - go away helped. Go away smiling. Good fortune begins to unfold from a certain corner of Soho and spread its wings throughout all of London. 

Much has been said about the power of an angel’s love to transform. But, as Aziraphale well knows from six thousand years of being loved, and listened to, and waited for, a demon’s love has just as much power. Maybe more. 

Aziraphale has never felt powerful, the way he feels now. 

_____

After the events of Armageddon, after he went to Hell, after dining at the Ritz, Aziraphale went back to his bookshop. He spent the afternoon without Crowley, just organizing his not-burned shelves, restocking his pantry, making sure everything was placed just right. He was in the kitchen when it happened - a blazing light appeared above him, unfolding from the ceiling, and beaming down onto his face as he looked up. 

_“Aziraphale, Angel of the Eastern Gate.”_

Aziraphale bit his lip and met the light - it didn’t hurt his eyes, exactly, but it wasn’t pleasant either, staring into the face of God. “Yes, Lord?” 

The voice boomed through the kitchen, strangely incongruous in its rippling divinity, in this little, crowded room full to the brim with humanity. 

_“Where, Angel,_” it said, _“is the flaming sword I gave to you?”_

Aziraphale swallowed. It was the same question as before - the same question he’d been asked last time God had spoken to him. It was the question that had hung over his head for six thousand years. The question that had revealed who he really was, that had exposed his secret long before he’d allowed himself to admit it - that he loved humanity, that he loved kindness and mercy, more than he loved this holy war. 

He was ready now to give an honest answer.

“I gave it to Adam and Eve,” he said. “I didn’t want it anymore.” 

There was silence. The light did not disappear, as it had before; it continued to shine. Aziraphale did not look away. 

_“You do not wish to be a warrior?”_ said the voice at last. 

“No, Lord.” 

_“You do not wish to return to Heaven?”_

Aziraphale stared upward. He knew what was coming, had known it for a long time, but he wasn’t afraid anymore. He had the feeling, that day after dining with Crowley for the first time as beings fully free, that he would never be afraid of anything again. 

“I don’t,” he said. “I want to be a protector of humanity. I want to help them. And I don’t believe - I don’t believe what they’re doing in Heaven is any expression of Your love, anyway.” 

The light glowed a little brighter. _“Do you understand what you are sacrificing, Angel?”_

For a moment something twisted in Aziraphale’s gut, and a nasty voice from the back of his mind needled a thought through to the front. _This will be the last time anyone calls you that._

But a moment later the twist was gone, and Aziraphale felt warm and full, and a far louder voice responded - _no, it won’t be._

“I understand,” he said. “I’m willing.” 

And Aziraphale thought, just after he said it, that he felt some emotion being passed down in the rays of light. Something strangely similar to pride. A feeling as though the overpowering divine beam was smiling at him. 

_“So be it,”_ said the voice, and lightning flashed down from the ceiling. 

Falling wasn’t like he’d expected it to be. It wasn’t harsh, wasn’t violent. It didn’t feel like the shocks of a city in an earthquake, but instead like an earthquake deep, deep underground - simply the sliding of two plates, the release of a long pent-up tension. A certain fearful energy that had run through Aziraphale’s veins so long he’d grown used to it, a certain glaring holiness that had always set Aziraphale’s teeth just slightly on edge, suddenly gone with a sigh, and silence left in its wake. 

In the next moment the kitchen was empty again, empty except for a demon. And the demon Aziraphale was smiling. 

_Gave it away._

He tells all this to Crowley, one night when they’re in bed together. Crowley is nestled close to him, sharing his warmth, and sheets and blankets are draped lazily over them, holding them together. Crowley’s eyes are shut, but Aziraphale has no doubt he’s listening. 

“So maybe this is all part of the Ineffable Plan, after all,” says Crowley softly. 

Aziraphale cuddles closer. “Maybe so.” 

“You were brave, Aziraphale. I don’t know of a single demon who chose to fall like that.” 

“Darling, I haven’t been nearly as brave as you.” 

Crowley’s smile is easy and fond. He draws Aziraphale in for a kiss, and Aziraphale goes just as easily and fondly. They go easily and fondly into the night, which is the natural domain of demons, and they go easily and fondly into the day, which is the natural domain of humanity. They go easily and fondly into their lives, their futures, arm in arm. 

Once Aziraphale caved to his instincts and let go of a holy weapon. Not long afterward, he met a demon, and that demon encouraged him, told him it was all right, told him that he had doubts and fears as well. Once a demon opened his arms to Aziraphale and waited, patiently, so patiently, for Aziraphale to come to him. Once Aziraphale was shown what real love was. And everything, everything changed. 

Aziraphale holds Crowley to him, and feels strong.

**Author's Note:**

> Like my content? Find me on tumblr @whatawriterwields!


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